D. A. Kentner
Writer & author (the two are not necessarily the same thing), blazing a path to where I have no clue, spinner of tales, purveyor of misfortune, U.S. Army vet, retired cop, former auctioneer, son, brother, uncle, father, and grandfather, commentator on anything that strikes a chord in a moment of passion, and willing to share my trials and tribulations as I blindly plod my way through the swamp toward literary success... or failure.
Award-Winning Art Director and Author JT Lawrence
South Africa’s Janita “JT” Lawrence describes herself as a ‘long-legged redhead with a penchant for words and pretty things… practices yoga and drinks beer.’ While we obviously see JT’s humorous side, what is hidden is that JT is in reality a businesswoman with an advertising background bent on producing some of the best thriller and suspense stories a reader can find. If her debut novel “The Memory of Water” is any indication, she is well on her way to doing just that.
JT incorporates her native country and snippets of language into a tightly woven tale of murder and the protagonist, Slade Harris, who may have unwittingly plotted the crime, but is now most certainly the prime suspect. Harris is a man yet to come to terms with the ambiguities surrounding his sister’s death years ago. His turmoil has led him along a shaky path leaning toward thrill-seeking self-destruction, but still an inch or two from total collapse into darkness. Within this contemporary tale a reader will find a number of local cultural references that when melded with the author’s brand of humor and exquisite prose serve to paint a vivid picture of the settings and original characters. Simply put, “The Memory of Water” is fun, tense, and a novel that will leave the reader anxiously awaiting JT’s next offering.
http://thememoryofwater.blogspot.com/
December 13, 2011
NYT and USA Today Best-Selling Author Terri DuLong
Occasionally a writer comes along to remind us all that dreams need not be unfulfilled, and passion cannot be denied.
Terri DuLong wasn't raised in literary circles, never obtained a degree in English or literature. Instead, she married young and had three children, only to later divorce, and later still, find love and remarry. To support herself and her children, Terri went to college and eventually became a registered nurse. She didn't write books, she read them, and, as many of us do, wondered what being a writer might be like.
While a critical care RN, Terri's wonder turned curiosity, and she took a creative writing course. When her husband's job transferred the family to Florida, Terri worked part-time and began writing more. She attended writing workshops and conferences, all the while working to improve her craft. Somewhere in this process, curiosity turned passion. Passion within writers fills pages with their stories. It doesn't matter whether those stories are ever published. You see, publication is a reward for a writer's dedication to their skill and craft, being published is not the fuel that feeds the passion.
After years of rejections, Terri's passion for writing was rewarded. "Spinning Forward," with its subtle, gentle prose, captures the reader's interest like a long-missed relative who stopped by for a visit. The first in the Cedar Key series "Spinning Forward" spun the yarn that binds the continuing novels together. Each is the compelling story of a woman at a crossroads, and the decisions that impact their lives.
Be it "Spinning Forward," "Casting About," or Terri's latest, "Sunrise on Cedar Key," readers are sure to enjoy the homespun stories of women linked by a love of knitting and their indomitable spirits.
Victoria Alexander exemplifies life lived and enjoyed to its fullest. This charismatic lady with a perpetual smile is a former TV news reporter who viewed all the good and bad this world has to offer, including the time her own husband and other journalists were held hostage by a disturbed man.
Since leaving television, she has seen sixteen of her more than two dozen books hit the New York Times, USA Today and/or Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. "The Perfect Wife" was a NYT #1 bestseller. In 2009 she was given a Career Achievement Award from RT Bookclub and named Historical Storyteller of the year in 2003.
Victoria's stories of love, romance, and intrigue in bygone eras contain the wit, charm, and sometimes quick tongue the author herself possesses. Her heroines know what they want and aren't afraid to go after it, and the heroes are all man. In "The Perfect Mistress," released earlier this year, Victoria unveiled a proper lady who discovers passion is her legacy. But she also introduced some new characters who now have their own story to tell in "His Mistress by Christmas." Widowed Lady Veronica Simpson seeks the boudoir benefits of marriage without the tedious restrictions. Rogue and explorer Sir Sebastian Hadley-Attwater needs a wife in order to ingratiate himself to his family. Oh yeah, there's a collision course if ever there was one.
While Victoria has found a successful formula for her writing, it is the characters who make each offering delightfully entertaining and the story unique from all her other works.
Today Victoria resides in Nebraska with her husband and a bearded collie who enjoys kitchen counter surfing.
November 1, 2011
Poet/Author Todd Moore
This edition of my column is a bit unique as the writer we're focusing, Todd Moore, passed away in March 2010. But Todd Moore is an example of a man whose life and words will live for decades to come.
On the day of his death, Moore's first full-length short poetry collection "Dead Reckoning" was released. Moore didn't write about paths less travelled, swans on glass lakes, or spring's first blossom. That wasn't the world he was shown. I think Moore described his work best in this excerpt of his instructions for reading "Dead Reckoning":
"I write poetry the way some people bet on roulette. I write poetry the way John Dillinger robbed banks. I do it compulsively, I do it quickly, I do it incessantly, I do it explosively because writing poetry means engaging in an act of unpredictable psychic aggression. When I write a poem I intend to assault you. I need to pull you into my long unforgiving nightmare war. And, make no doubt about it. My poetry is an assault on your person, your identity, your eyes, your skin. When you read one of my poems, you enter into a minefield that is not of your making."
To gain perspective of the world Todd Moore grew up in would require a keyhole to the past. Moore's son, Theron Moore, created that keyhole in a compilation of his father's poems and essays about his youth - "Gangsters, Harlots & Thieves: Down and Out at the Hotel Clifton."
The Hotel Clifton in Freeport, IL, was that place every film noire, hardboiled, private eye slept with a half empty bottle of bootleg liquor under the bed. It was a place where seedy contacts were made, deals broken, lives ignored. It was a place of gangsters, harlots, and thieves, and where Todd Moore lived as a child with his father, a would-be gangster who did odd jobs for the Capones.
"Gangsters, Harlots & Thieves" is a snapshot of desperate and tangled lives we can't pull our eyes from. It is a boy snatching the ten-spot from the hat of man found hanged, the disposing of a murder weapon, and a brittle outlook of "you have to die if you want to dream."
If you haven't read Todd Moore's work, do. But start at his beginning with "Gangsters, Harlots & Thieves."
October 25, 2011: Author John Gilstrap: Fifteen-year Volunteer Fireman and EMT
John Gilstrap: Fifteen-year volunteer fireman and EMT, explosives safety and hazardous waste expert, earned a Master of Science degree in safety engineering and a bachelor's degree in history, business consultant, director of safety for a Washington, D.C. trade association, screenplay writer, devoted husband and father, master of the thriller novel. Translated and published in twenty countries, Gilstrap's stories have seen more of the world than many of us ever will.Still, in spite of, or because of that impressive resume, this amazing author remains down to earth and fiercely loyal to his fans and readers. So much so, he personally responds to each and every letter and email and commits himself to a weekly blog post, inviting anyone and everyone to weigh in on his thoughts. In other words, Gilstrap is who he has always been, a man passionate about life, writing, and the people he encounters.
Gilstrap wrote four novels before seeing one published. That book was "Nathan's Run," the internationally acclaimed story of a twelve-year-old accused of murder and his lonely flight to survive against an entire country convinced of his guilt. Then came the obvious question; how do you follow up "overnight success"? Gilstrap's answer came with the equally successful "At All Costs."
But a collaborative effort with Kurt Muse resulted in the nonfiction book "Six Minutes to Freedom," and a turn in Gilstrap's writing. Six Minutes is the true story of Muse's rescue by Delta Force from Panamanian thugs ordered to execute him. Gilstrap met and interviewed a number of the men directly involved in the rescue and learned how gentle and kind these professionals willing to risk their lives against unthinkable odds to save one man, truly are.
From those meetings and Gilstrap's imagination came the uniquely heroic Jonathon Grave, a freelance covert rescue specialist. First appearing in "No Mercy," Grave's popularity with thriller fans continues to grow and now finds the no-nonsense hero in his third novel, "Threat Warning," the tale of a secret society of killers and the power mongers issuing their orders.
John Gilstrap's prose is superb, his plots mesmerizing, and every character wonderfully crafted.
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http://johngilstrap.com
"A Dance with Bogie and Bacall" October 2011
"A Dance with Bogie and Bacall" is an enjoyable contemporary romantic fantasy written by Freeport's own David "DA" Kentner under the pen name KevaD.
This is David/KevaD's eighth release with two more due out this month thru Noble Romance Publishing.
His full-length suspense novel "Whistle Pass" is expected to be published in March 2012 by Dreamspinner Press.
http://www.kevad.net/
https://www.nobleromance.com/Authors/116
http://www.rainbowebooks.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4507
A Dance with Bogie and Bacall blurb:
Radio DJ Scott Kincaid's first caller of the night is a lady who died forty-nine years ago. The second wants to knock his head off. And he thought falling in love would be easy.
Maureen and Frank Johnson shared the kind of romance most people believe only exists in movies. Until a ballroom fire took Maureen's life.
Franci Johnson grew up hearing her grandparents' love story a thousand times, and wishes to find the kind of undying love Frank and Maureen did.
Radio DJ, Scott Kincaid, just wants the ghost following him to go away. But Maureen thinks the hunky DJ just might be the answer to her granddaughter's dreams . . . .
Neal Schaffer has taken network and marketing strategies to a level that has not just corporations and businesses vying for his attention, but individuals as well. Though President of Windmills Marketing, a social media marketing strategic consultancy firm, Neal has channeled his expertise in to two easily understood books even someone as marketing naïve as I can understand.
"Windmill Networking: Understanding, Leveraging & Maximizing LinkedIn" is Neal's best-selling guide that revolutionized professionals' utilization of LinkedIn. Enter the average person's confusion – what the heck is LinkedIn? LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. Think Facebook for the business world. But those six words don't begin to describe the services and information available to the general public. Employment information, contacts, references, referrals, and the ability to study businesses and their working models in both practice and marketing are all available for anyone desiring to improve their personal or business situation.
So, how to best utilize LinkedIn if you are an individual seeking to promote a new business, art, writing, or self in general? Here is where Neal Schaffer and his latest book, "Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing," come in to play. Anyone from mega corporation to weekend builder of bird houses to nonprofit organizations can learn to create sales-oriented profiles, improve reputation, and drive more traffic to their web sites. Neal spells out the systems tools and advantages in layman's terms.
Let me put this in a way I, as a writer, can understand. There are 120 million LinkedIn members worldwide. That's 120 million opportunities to sell my books, if I take the time and trouble to make use of the network in a viable and useful manner. And that's what Neal and his books do – they provide the information to take full advantage of LinkedIn.
http://windmillnetworking.com/blog/
Acclaimed Mystery Author Leslie Meier
Leslie Meier enjoys murdering people on special days of the year. Be it "Turkey Day Murder," "Mistletoe Murder, "Happy Birthday Murder," or Leslie's latest, "English Tea Murder," amateur sleuth, Lucy Stone, solves every fiendish and cleverly designed homicide this creative author can imagine.
Since her first published work, a short story for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’s Department of First Stories, Leslie has been writing mysteries and now has sixteen Lucy Stone novels to her credit. The heroine Lucy is a newspaper reporter and harried mother for four in fictional Tinker's Cove, Maine, the kind of charming town where nothing out of the ordinary should ever happen, but always does. In real life, Leslie was a newspaper reporter also. The result, in addition to some marvelously entertaining stories, is an insider's look at the hectic world of the reporter from the perspective of a wife and mother who lived it.
Leslie doesn't follow the traditional gunshots in the dark type of murders; hers encompass manufactured asthma attacks, asphyxiation, and mysterious ailments. And of course, what St. Paddy's Day celebration would be complete without green beer and a beheading?
"English Tea Murder" is the first story that follows reporter Lucy out of the U.S. to jolly old England, and lands her smack in the middle of not just one, but two murders, and more to come if she can't track down the killers while searching for the elusive perfect cup of tea.
Leslie Meier's books are as strong and humorous as her heroine, and as skillfully plotted as her murders. Finish one, and as her many fans attest to, the reader will keep coming back for more.
lesliemeierbooks.com
Mystery & Suspense Author Cheryl Crane
Cheryl Crane is a writer and accomplished author. Yet to this day she first has to place a past she never asked for behind her in order for the power of her distinctive literary voice to be heard. So, let's do that right now: In 1958, fourteen-year-old Cheryl became a ward of the state after the stabbing death of Johnny Stompanato, then boyfriend of Cheryl's mother, actress Lana Turner.
We can ask the obvious questions of did that affect Cheryl's life, has it followed Cheryl throughout her life, is she more attune to abuse, what was her mother like, what was it like being Lana Turner's daughter… But the truth is, we already know the answers to those questions as we've seen the story played out on TV and in articles dozens of times. Add to that, as part of her own life path, closure if you prefer, Cheryl authored "Detour: A Hollywood Story" in which she openly discusses and shares her life - good and bad, no holds barred.
Still, we can't disconnect our past from our present any more than Cheryl can. Cheryl utilizes her insider knowledge of Hollywood, its glitz, its drama, and its dark secrets, to weave masterful tales of murder, mystery, and suspense. "The Bad Always Die Twice" is the first book in a new series featuring realtor-turned-amateur sleuth, Nikki Harper. Nikki finds herself the unwanted center of a killer's attention when a dead man resurfaces, only to die, again. "The Bad Always Die Twice" is a whirling thrill ride through the behind-the-curtains Hollywood, told in a way only one who lived it could.